CCN Forum - Bilingual learner: Language, Literacy and Brain Development

Abstract:

Increased globalization highlights the challenges of educating bilingual children and helping bilinguals with dyslexia. The goal of this presentation is to explore how bilingualism affects the development of literacy in typically developing readers and bilinguals with dyslexia. There are two prevailing views about bilingual literacy. First, language-specific view, is that learning to read in a given language depends on time and effort spent learning to read in that language. Second, bilingual transfer view, is that bilinguals’ two languages interact and thus learning to read in one language supports learning to read in the other language. In this presentation we will address the key tenements of these views, reviewing both behavioral and neuroimaging evidence, and argue that early, systematic and simultaneous bilingual exposure is best for both typically developing bilingual learners as well as bilingual learners with dyslexia.